This weekend, one of the major USA TV Networks, NBC, will have an unprecedented 5 hours of live coverage of a 16 nation tournament for a relatively unknown Olympic team sport with 7 players to a side.  The sport is fast paced, features crisp passing, physical contact and high scoring.  Unfortunately, for us Handball fans, the 7 on 7 sport is Rugby 7s, not Team Handball.

My adopted home of Las Vegas will be hosting the 4^th leg of the Rugby World 7s tour.  Rugby 7s is a modified version of Rugby that features fewer players per team (7 vs 15) and much shorter games.  The Rugby World 7s tour plays in 8 cities world-wide and tournaments are played out in rapid fashion over two days in a festival style setting.  Rugby successfully lobbied to get the 7 on 7 version of the game on the Olympic program and it will make its debut at the 2016 Olympics.

I’ll be attending the event and hopefully speaking with NBC and USA Rugby 7s executives and maybe see if we can convince them to do the same for Team Handball.  If you have time check out the event on TV this weekend and let me know your ideas are concerning a similar event for our sport.

Hollywood Reporter:  NBC, Universal Sports Bet on Rugby: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/live-feed/nbc-universal-sports-bet-rugby-98136

NBC Rugby 7s Page: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/35910886/ns/sports-rugby_7s

Live TV Coverage is Saturday, February 12, 3:30 – 6:00PM ET and Sunday, February 13, 4:30 – 6:00 PM ET

Additional Internet coverage is also available at http://www.universalsports.com/